| Loosening your
belt buckles a few notches, convincing yourself that buying pants
with elastic waist bands are the new style or telling yourself that
a Body Mass Index of 30 is really not that bad. It has become obvious,
that America is losing the battle on fat. Now, the government has
tried to intervene by releasing urgent reports on obesity. Also, two
studies released detailed how desperate the fat crisis has become.
One of the studies showed how powerfully the sight of food impacted
the brain’s metabolism. Evidence of this provided proof to
the high sensitivity of the human brain when presented with food
stimuli.
In simpler terms, this meant that people have become addicts of
junk foods such as chocolate and pizza and just the sight or smell
of these foods sets off a switch in the brain, similar to a drug
addict needing a fix.
The study involved 12 people with normal and healthy body weights
who were deprived of food before the study.
The study concluded that the very sight of food significantly increased
metabolism in the whole brain and resulted in self-reports of hunger
and desire for food.
One researcher suggested that advertising, candy machines, food
shows and food displays have kept our brains constantly in the "on
mode" whenever exposed to food stimuli thus greatly contributing
to the obesity problem.
The second study illustrated how America has become complacent
with being fat and lost the will to do anything about it. Along
the lines of this mentality, it was discovered that American doctors
no longer advised their overweight patients to lose weight.
NeuroImage
April 2004;21(4):1790-7
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